The skill of effective communication has powerful influence in shaping school culture. Teachers, students and leadership are surrounded by feedback on a daily basis from the classroom to meetings to the playing field.

Understanding how to communicate can be the difference between listening to react and listening to understand. How one hears, processes and delivers feedback can be powerful in shaping the tone of personal and professional relationships. In this workshop, theory, practice and your experiences will be used to examine what it takes to host effective and productive conversations with colleagues and students.

This seminar, for teachers and administrators of all grades, will prepare participants to initiate better and more productive conversations with their colleagues, students, and parents. We will introduce a series of frameworks and skillsets which will enhance the way we speak and listen to each other.

This session includes:

Identifying types of feedback

Identifying perspective of knowings

Supporting different ways of knowing

Methods of hearing and giving feedback (even when you don’t want to)

Empathic Listening:an exercise is listening

Amygdala Hijack: identifying your triggers for grounded conversations

Four-fold Practice: a framework for mindful conversations

Levels of Speaking and Listening from Theory U: A framework for moving conversations to a co-generative space)

World Cafe: Creating a space for conversations leading to invested action